Sneak Peek of Alpha Wolf #3

Zephyr only saw the sun on his days off. Since the change he had become nocturnal and therefore had taken the nightshift as a security guard at a twenty-four-hour drugstore. Yes, as a discharged Special Forces captain he could have gotten a job as a private contractor or anything more illustrious than catching college students stealing cheap bottles of vodka. However, he wouldn’t have access to pharmaceuticals in another job. It hadn’t been hard to steal the store manager’s keys and make a copy. He’d accomplished that on his first day, right after his interview. His speed and prowess made him the perfect thief. And his x-ray vision made it so he could find anything he was looking for, even those things hidden.

Now every night that Zephyr worked he disabled the security cameras while the clerks played poker during the slowest store hour. He just knew there had to be a drug inside the locked pharmacy that would change him back, take the canine out of him. Make the strange dreams stop. But no matter how many pills he swallowed the attacks still came. Every week the change happened. Twelve excruciating hours. For half a day Zephyr was stuck in the form of a man and a wolf. And although he had been fast and agile all the time, he was a blur of movements as a werewolf. He could do things that he’d only seen in movies. He had always associated these ridiculous werewolves with a full moon, but that rule didn’t seem to dictate his change. However, he had been an experiment, just like the other men he’d escaped with. Often he wondered where they’d run away to.

Zephyr stood in the shadow the neighboring house cast, watching and wishing his x-ray vision worked from this distance. He found that he needed to be ten to fifteen feet from whatever he was trying to see through. This skill had come on when the lucid dreams started. He half expected that he’d have super strength like Rio, but that hadn’t been the case. Instead, he could see through things.

He smoothed down his black mustache and then the short hair on his chin, wondering what they’d done to him in that lab. He spent every night at the drugstore recalling the memories that were covered in images of syringes and bright overhead lights. And yet, none of the pieces connected. Zephyr didn’t know what had happened, but worst was that he didn’t know what he was anymore. One moment he’d been leaving his parents’ house, strolling to his car, and then he awoke to find himself imprisoned in the cell at the lab. His military training had been more extensive than that of a surgeon. Never had someone snuck up or attacked him without him being aware, but still…

He shook his head, bringing himself back to reality. It didn’t matter how it happened. Whoever had taken him, changed him, it didn’t matter. Now he had to deal with it.

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Alpha Wolf Sneak Peek #2

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Sneak Peek of Prologue for Alpha Wolf

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Tuesday Takeover: Why So Serious by Derek Borne

When we were little, we were always asked the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

And the usual responses were: veterinarian, doctor, firefighter, policeman, and the list continues. Fast forward a few years, and there’s a change that takes place. Rather than asking you what you want to be, you’re slowly moulded into what this world thinks you should be. Most times due to circumstances, options become few. Those dreams you once had as a four or five year old are gone.

So what happened?

This world we live in has become too serious. So serious, that it tries to crush our hopes and dreams. True, we need to be grounded in reality. We need to work to keep food on our table for our families. Even free time seems to be as elusive as the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Well this is a depressing article, where’s the positivity?”

And there you go. Go back, yeah, that right there, did you miss it?

The fact that we strive to look for the positive is a sign that our hopes and dreams are still inside of us. Everything we’ve ever dreamed of can still be accomplished when we tap into that positive energy. It can lift our spirits and be a driving force. It’s not easy, but once you harness the ability of positivity, what seems impossible can turn into the possible.

Positivity is the hero that can conquer the villain of seriousness. It becomes even more rewarding when we think about others, and inject some into their lives. Because we never know if we may be the reason why someone else kept their dreams alive.

Why not make more of an effort to be more positive?

Why so serious?

(Sorry, couldn’t help myself…)

Derek Borne is the author of the “Ultimate Agent” series, due to be released next year. Discover his world of superheroes and espionage at www.derekborne.weebly.com

Tuesday Takeover: Meditating for Sensory and Emotional Things and Stuff and Reasons by Empressa Komlo

Happy Tyr’s Day, writers and friends! Is it Tuesday? I’ve given up keeping track, especially with NaNoWriMo, the election, the holidays… Anyway! The lovely Sarah Noffke has invited me to do a Tuesday Takeover on her awesome blog (thanks, Sarah!) and I’m not sure she knows what she’s gotten herself or her readers into but I have a feeling y’all can handle my hot mess. Thus far in my dabbling with writing and novels, I have started a fantasy novel then done little else with it and I have made love with the plot and ideas for historical fiction – with a paranormal twist! –  about Her Royal Majesty, the Most Amazing and Admirable Queen Elizabeth I (I may or may not tend to fangirl just at the thought of her). I have long wanted to give some voice to the emotional shitstorms she went through, especially before her ascension to the throne of England. One of my favorite historians and novelists, Alison Weir, does a great exploration into the more intricate parts of Elizabeth’s character in “The Lady Elizabeth”. I wanted to take it further, though, and really get into her emotional reactions, or seemingly lack thereof, while she endured and persevered as a young woman and royal in 16th century England. So, uh, how the fuck do I do that?

After going through the archives of writing-related searches on Google, I thought about all the advice of visualizing scenes. What is your character wearing? What is she holding in her hands? Who else is with her and wow, I wonder, did Cecil (one of Elizabeth’s most trusted advisers) also visualized slapping the shit out of Robert Dudley? The thing with these exercises is they aren’t really time well spent for historical fiction. I mean, they aren’t a waste, it’s good to get your brain going but there are tons of paintings and I have been studying Elizabethan England since I was 9. I already know what she wore and where she was at most times.

What my novel needs is the essence of Elizabeth’s character. One can only imagine what it was like losing your mother because your father was an impressionable douche canoe and couldn’t stop obsessing over trying to father a male heir so he beheads her to try with another woman. How I wish I could go back in time and tell him it’s the father’s chromosome that has to break to produce a male but whatever, beside the point. Then there’s the years of being suspected of treason and fearing execution. Add to that the prospect of being forced to marry… It’s kind of overwhelming just to think about. I want readers to, on some level, feel and understand what that was truly like. Because our pain has the potential to become our strength and Elizabeth was a magnificent example of this. I want to know how she coped with being imprisoned by her own sister and being interrogated by men who switched faces and turned coat more often than middle school girls. She is the type of woman we base our heroines off of.

Then it dawned on me – I’ve had a past life regression. I won’t get into details but in it I was in 1560s France and when I wrote it in my journal I was able to give some pretty exquisite details. My task, I realized, is similar to recreating that; however, in this meditation I observe Elizabeth. I have found many blog posts and articles about using meditation to open creativity and invite the muses into your writing life. I’ll link to those at the end, if you’re interested. These are valuable techniques but, again, not what I need. In my meditation, after grounding and centering myself, I pick a scene in my plot/Elizabeth’s life. I then start with the room, walls and tapestries, tables and hearths, wardrobes and writing desks. But! This is a step that you can easily get carried away with. If you do try this, which I think it’s definitely helpful even for non-hist fic writers, remember that the exact color of the furniture likely isn’t going to affect anyone other than a poor high school literature class whose teacher insists there is a reason the curtains are blue. No, unless your character did something with those curtains, they’re just goddamn curtains. Anyway…try not to get too caught up in this unless you really want to and have time. My focus is on Elizabeth, her interactions with others, and the outcomes of those interactions. After creating the setting in my head, I throw in some dialogue relevant to the scene I’m wanting to write. In my novel this is usually going to be said between the men who were put in charge of keeping her under house arrest, her sister, and some noble ladies. My main observations are centered around Elizabeth’s facial expressions in each scene and, after the other characters have left her presence, what her next actions are. I usually am more or less done with the exercise after this because I can take this and pants the bajeezebuses out of a few scenes based on the ideas it has given. It’s particularly helpful for scenes that I’m struggling to transition into/away from and ones where the dialogue is feeling mechanical.

If you have questions or would like some more info on anything I’ve mentioned here, let me know in the comments or email me, the address is in my bio here! 🙂 I’m off to spend time in my head. If you don’t see anything from me by January, I might have gotten stuck in the year 1585. Feel free to visit!

Links to meditations for writers/creatives: http://shawnradcliffe.com/mindfulness-writing-creative-thinking-meditation/ http://www.copyblogger.com/writing-meditation/ http://www.copyblogger.com/writing-meditation/

Bio: Rae (otherwise known as “Empy” by friends and foe alike) is a weird hybrid of writer, editor, coach, and social media manager. She is working on her first novel, a slightly paranormal historical fiction about her longtime idol, Queen Elizabeth I. She’s also creating an online business offering editing and content management with sides of SEO and marketing. Outside of the web, she has a 5 year old spawn, fiance, 3 dogs, 3 cats, 2 horses, snakes, and a small army. You can visit her new e-home once it is built enough to be habitable at TheCommaSutra.net or you can email her at EmpRKomlo@gmail.com